Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Stiller vs trued 700

Threads like this always crack me up. My comments are not about Stiller vs trued 700's, offer some advise to the novice that reads these types of threads.

I have trued 700's and 40X, and of course non trued of the same. As a former benchrest shooter, have had a dozen Hall M's, half again as many Stolle Panda's. All my actions are on benchrest stocks/barrels, and jewel triggers on everything.

Over the years, I have come full circle. I used to be an elitist with nothing but customs. Since I do my own work, it has been an interesting experiment that has involved several tens of thousands of dollars over the years involving all kinds of actions in Benchrest set ups.

The history of truing 700's started in the late 80's and we all jumped on the band wagon wanting to not leave any accuracy on the table as truing supposedly stabilizes harmonics. About 20 years later, I went back to not truing my actions, revisiting what a stock 700 would do with a 6ppc and 6 BR. I do use wind flags and I do have high quality benchrests and bags to shoot off of.

So, let me offer the results of only this last years trials on non trued Remingtons, 3" wide Benchrest stocks, 2 oz jewel triggers, and nightforce 12x-42x scopes.

6 XC-31" unturned blank, fully free floated to the lug
6.5x47 Lapua-29" unturned blank, fully free floated to lug
(2) 6 Dashers-8T- .105 and .130 freebore-29" Max Heavy
Varmint contours, totally free floated
6 BRX-28,26,24" unturned blanks, fully free floated. I wanted to do an experiment to see the accuracy difference in a chamber that was indicated in with .003 run out, then .0015 run out, then .0001 run out.

IN all cases, these barrels shot groups from the .070 area to .285 area, worst case when the accuracy node was found. These groups sizes were repeated over many hundreds of rounds. The groups are consistent, but the barrel that was chambered in 6 BRX with the .003 run out and .0015 run out exhibited load development that had a much narrower tune window, and seemed to be more finicky on changing climate. The chamber with .0001 had a very wide tune window and was more stable from day to day.

I feel as if a great lie has been perpetrated on the public in general when it comes to truing actions. I do not do work for other people when it comes to gunsmithing, and I can true my own actions. Truing actions is something that gunsmiths have had to learn to do to keep up with the public's general common accepted belief that a NON trued action will not shoot well.

As I stated earlier, I used to true all my custom benchrest actions and firing control mechanisms.

Part of what we do is a point of pride in our equipment, part is due to not wanting to leave any accuracy laying on the table. Seldom do you ever hear what really needs to be done for the average guy to shoot really exceptional groups for recreational target shooting and hunting. Many people can not afford the elite of custom upgrades, and they need to know where money needs to be spent and not spent.

So, where do you spend the money to get your best bang for the buck? That would be on a gunsmith that spends his time indicating the barrel in to the .0001-.0003. Even less expensive barrels shoot like a house a fire on non trued 700's, when indicated in properly with a Interapid indicator that has a 2.7" indicator needle. Barrels should of course should be fitted with the proper fitting bushing out of a large set of bushings for that caliber.

I don't do work for the public, I just think that folks should know some basic truths.